


Sempiternity

by Lady_Ariadne



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, F/M, Far Future, Humans gifted with talents, Nanites, Outer Space, Science Fiction, Superpowers, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 07:50:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15681147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ariadne/pseuds/Lady_Ariadne
Summary: After the Royal Confederacy extends its borders to a new part of the Me'Lyyra quadrant, Amira is assigned to attend a reception held for Ambassador Yhoaal of the Vhareen, one of the sector's most influencial Species. On the reception she gets to know the Ambassador's son, who soon develops great interest to have her as both a human representative and his personal guard at the negotiations with one of Vhareen's neighbouring systems.





	Sempiternity

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to chapter one of what is the first installment in a series of works taking place in a timeframe around the twenty-sixth century. They take place in a universe where some individuals are born with a Talent, which grants them certain abilities varying from person to person.

As on each other morning of the past week Amira was woken by the activation of the mellow lights and a soft melody that vaguely resembled the chirping of the glass birds on the planet below her. Amira deactivated the alarm and reluctantly folded back her blanket. Sleeping wasn't nearly as an efficient form of regeneration as a few hours in an ionic chamber. So far though the other guests on Guardian IV had no idea about her more advanced modifications and Amira strongly favoured keeping it that way, even if this meant that she had to sleep in a regular bed. The girl rose and watched as the dark blue silk flowed back into its original position, making it look as if no one had ever touched the bed. With a wave of her hand she cleared the darkened windows, introducing her to a beautiful view of Saiph Prime the only planet in the Arada system that was habitable for humanoid life. Consequently it hadn't taken long for the Royal Confederacy to claim and colonize the system and since it was on the edge of their territory in the Me’Lyyra quadrant Guardian IV had been moved as a safeguard against possible foreign attacks. Yet the battle station was big enough to possess a variety of guest quarters built to accommodate anyone from a simple merchant to ambassadors of neighbouring systems.

Amira had booked herself one of the better quarters, not to good though since residing in one of the suites would most likely have drawn too much attention to her stay. She went into the bathroom and activated the sonic shower, before selecting her hairstyle for the day. While the vibrations cleaned her body she decided to go for two ice blue strands in her naturally mauve hair, along with an elaborate knot that entwined her long wisps into three cascades. Once she was satisfied with the way her hair looked Amira turned the shower off and chose her outfit for the day. It was a lavish dress made from frozen velvet, a material that seemed to change its colour and phase depending on the light and temperature in the surrounding environment. The dress had several careful placed cut-outs that would show just enough of Amira’s skin to attract the attention of most of the boys on the station, but not enough for someone to consider it inappropriate for a girl of her age. Now fully dressed Amira left her quarters and headed for the reason for which she had come to visit Guardian IV in the first place.

The reception held for Ambassador Yhoaal had already begun when Amira arrived, but since none of the guests of honour had arrived so far she didn't consider herself to be late. "A glass of champagne?" one of the waiters asked her, "It was especially imported from Earth". Amira analysed the sparkling liquid and ascertained that it indeed had been made in France. "Thank you," she said as she took one of the glasses. It was a perfectly dry champagne and even without the chemical marker Amira would easily have identified it as a Château Vavance. This came as no real surprise, after all the Queen of Obsidia Nova was one of the Princess’ closest advisors for almost four centuries now. Out of routine Amira checked the room, searching it for vantage points and possible exits. Apart from the gallery there was no other point a sniper could sit at and land a critical shot and the gallery was surrounded by a level ten force field invisible to the naked eye and basically indestructible with most conventional handguns. Nonetheless the girl calculated several escape routes from various points of the room to each of the exits, while not counting the picture windows sine the cold embrace of space would be lethal for most of the people in the room.

One of the ambassador's servants chimed a water like gong as he and his family entered the room. Immediately the conversations died and silence filled the room for a moment, until the station’s Commander Harlan Jann stepped forward and greeted the Vhareen. They had been one of the first species native to section forty two to develop trade with the Confederacy and now the Ambassador had been sent to open negotiations about a free trade treatment and the possibility of a subsequent partial membership in the Confederacy. This was one of the reasons why this reception was held on Guardian IV, as the station was a symbol of the strength that could protect Vhareen in a not too distant future. "And so I raise my glass to an example of friendship between systems that are tens of thousands of light years apart," the Commander's toast brought Amira back to reality, just in time to raise her glass along with the Ambassador. "To the strength of friendship," he said and took a sip from his neon red drink. Several people responded with a feisty, "Hear, hear" and with another gong the less formal part of the reception began.

With the already empty glass in her hand Amira walked to the bar and nearly crashed into a Vhareen boy who was maybe a year or two older than her. "I am sorry your Excellency," Amira said once she had identified the boy as Ambassador Yhoaal’s son. "No harm done," he responded. "And call me Eenim, my father is the Excellency," he added once had examined the girl in front of him. "May I ask you to join me on the gallery?" he asked and held out his hand upright. Even without the detail that he apparently had studied human customs and the obligation of political politeness, Amira would have been inclined to accept the offer. "Of course, I would love to," she replied and took his outstretched hand.

The gallery's floor illuminated each time someone stepped on it, causing the guests and waiters to leave a short glowing trail, each in a slightly different colour. "My father asked for this to be done," Eenim said and pointed at the silky glow. "It is a recreation of a special rock found along some coastlines which gleam when it comes in contact with an electric field," he explained, "But enough about me, I haven’t even asked you for your name yet" "I am Amira," the girl said, "And just that you know I am not the daughter of any dignitary". This made Eenim chuckle as he and Amira sat down at the bar. He tried one of the canapés and seemed surprised by how pleasant it tasted. "What is this?" he asked, already taking a second one. "I believe it is Vina'ar, a speciality from Ze'Kyyra one of the Confederacy's core systems," Amira declared after taking a quick look at the appetizer. "If that is a speciality where you come from, we definitely have to visit your world," Eenim suggested enthusiastically. This time it was Amira's turn to smile, before she corrected him, "Though you are right that I am not a hundred percent human, I still consider the Sol system or more precisely Mars as my home. However we do have some pretty delicious dishes as well". Eenim listened to her with great interest and courteously waited for her to finish, before asking another question about her home.

The first time that they stopped exchanging interesting facts about the planets they were born on was when one of the bartenders came to take their orders. “Why don't you order something you would drink on Mars for me and I order something I would drink on Vhareen for you,” Eenim suggested. “Sounds like a solid idea,” Amira returned and looked at the bartender, “My friend would like to drink a Backdraft”. The man gave Eenim a compassionate glance and noted the order. “And I would like to order a Soleiiya for the lovely girl,” Eenim said and gifted Amira his best smile. “An excellent choice,” the bartender said and went to prepare their orders.

There was a moment’s silence once the two were alone again and neither of them was sure whether they wanted to be the one to break it. Finally Eenim decided to make the first move. “Now I know quite a lot about your home, but you still haven’t told me why you are attending this party,” he said, with a questioning look towards Amira. The girl returned a mysterious smile along with the most dramatic look Eenim had ever seen. “Let’s make it a game, if you can guess the reason I will dance with you,” the girl almost whispered. “Well since I apparently can’t loose, I’m in,” Eenim returned and began to eye the person in front of him even closer than he had done so far.

“Well,” he began his train of thoughts, “You are definitely not poor, otherwise you couldn’t afford a dress like the one you are wearing. On the other hand though I haven’t seen you yet, so you’re probably not the daughter of one of my father’s business contacts either. Of course you could be just some rich girl who wants to attend a party with an alien species she doesn’t know yet, but there are a lot of safer places to do this and consequently I will rule out this possibility as well”. While Eenim was monologuing about the options of her origins, Amira was kindly smiling only raising her eyebrow every now and then. “Since you said that you are not the daughter of one of the dignitaries, but neither are completely human I would say that you are the daughter of some important human and a woman from one of the local planets and you were invited as an example for the good relationships of the human race with sector forty two,” Eenim concluded and watched her tensely, expecting her resolving answer.

With an almost perfect sense of timing the bartender arrived with their drinks, which in Amira’s case meant that there was now a closed glass flower standing in front of her. Each of the petals seemed to hold a different colour of the rainbow, for some reason though there apparently was not a single drop of liquid in the blossom. “You have to blow on it,” Eenim explained. Amira was surprised and cautiously blew a gasp of air against the drink. In a magical metamorphosis the petals opened and lost their colour into seven layers each of them interweaving with the others in a constant swirl. “Wow,” was the only thing that managed its way into the girl’s head and out of her mouth. “Yeah, and wait ‘till you taste it,” Eenim said with a knowing smile.

Slowly Amira brought the glass to her lips and tool a sip of the tiny galaxy inside it. The taste that diffused inside her mouth was impossible to describe. _Gennf_ was somewhat alike but couldn’t quite meet the point. “Some scientists say this is one of the closest things to the taste of time,” Eenim said as he was carefully watching Amira’s expressions. Amira chuckled about this statement. Even in the time of advanced interstellar travel she knew of only one person in the universe who might be able to tell her how much truth there was in these words. “One of the main ingredients is a crystal found in the rings  around Revatii, my home planet’s main sun. The crystals absorb the radiation from all four suns and this is how they create this shine,” Eenim explained to a carefully listening Amira. 

“But aren’t there better ways to use these crystals than to liquefy them into cocktails?” Amira asked about this apparent waist of such a precious resource. “Interestingly the structure of the crystals doesn’t allow for them to leave Revatii’s orbit, as soon as they are taken they begin to decay. The only way to keep them from this fate is to either turn them into a plasma which we indeed use for energy distribution in our ships or to change them self stabilising liquid which has so far not found any other usage but being turned into the perfect drink,” Eenim supported his exposition with several images he showed the girl on the bar’s holographic display. “Now though I think its only fair if get to know you a little better, after all this exchange of information has been a little one sided,” he said, deactivating the screen.

Amira traced the  edge of the petals with her index finger and licked away the tiny drop of liquid that had gathered on its tip, before she decided to follow the Vhareen’s suggestion. “The first thing would be to tell you how wrong your assumption about the reason for my attendance at this reception was,” Amira stated while waiving for the bartender to finish the drink she had ordered for Eenim. “I was assigned here to represent the talent project created by the Princesses of Terra,”  Amira elucidated and indicated for Eenim to watch the final preparations made on the Backdraft. “So you are one of the humans born with special abilities?” he asked, his attention shifting between the drink and the girl in order to see her nod. Immediately he had a follow up question, “What’s you ability, if I may ask?” “It is easier to show than to tell,” Amira stated, waiting for the bartender to ignite the alcohol.

The bartender poured an ounce of Cointreau into a pint glass and after a short gesture he held it out to Amira. The girl snapped her fingers and a small blue flame rose from the tips. It wandered over to the  clear liquid and stayed there even after Amira withdrew her hand. Eenim watched in amazement as the burning Cointreau was poured onto a shot-glass full of Sambuca which in turn was lit on fire as well. 

The man behind the counter took a shaker filled with cinnamon and scattered a cloud of it over the drink which ignited the thinly spread spice immediately . The overflowing liquid was forming a burning puddle on the saucer the glass was standing on and the bartender placed the pint glass upside down on the  plate, while leaving it to Amira to blow out the flames. The partial vacuum inside the glass drew the remaining liquid inside were it turned into a thin vapour. Amira lifted the glass and put her hand on the opening from where fern frost began to grow on it. 

“You have to take a straw and inhale the vapour,” she said. Eenim took one from behind the bar and shoved it through between the girl’s finger. He took a deep breath and was surprised by the intensity of the seemingly clear air. “Now you can take the shot,” Amira said. Eenim emptied the small glass in one gulp, swallowed and looked at Amira with an unreadable expression on his face. “That was quite strong,” he said with a slightly hoarse voice. “I’m sorry,” Amira promptly apologized, “I totally forgot to ask you whether you usually drink alcoholic stuff” “No need to worry I do, I simply never had something like that before,” he stated, his voice slowly returning back to normal. “In that case we can call this a successful exchange between cultures,” Amira joked.

Eenim laughed, partially to hide a small cough. “Wait,” he said as if he had just remembered something of utter importance. “If you’re one of the human representatives you should at least my father”. Amira didn’t even get to tell him that she was no representative, in fact she barely got to finish her drink, before the boy began to drag her through the room and to the table that had been  assigned to the Ambassador.

“Father,” Eenim said as soon as the had reached the table. “You have to meet Amira, she is part of the talent project you told me about”. The Ambassador eyed the girl from the ends of her mauve hair to the hemline of her shimmering dress. “Hello my dear,” he said and reached out his hand horizontally. Amira reached out and brushed over the lowest part of his forearm until the tip of her index and middle finger reached his. The Ambassador nodded approvingly. To the Vhareen the brushing was similar to the shaking of hands that still was a custom to some humans.

Yhoaal invited them to sit down next to him interested to hear what his son had to say about the human girl he had to meet. “Amira can control ice and fire,” Eenim stated fulsomely. This indeed did surprise the older Vhareen. Due to his profession he had travelled the galaxy for almost all of his adult life and over the years he had met several species with abilities that were once to be described as supernatural, so far though none of them had been able to control the  two things that were the cornerstone in the evolution of virtually every sentient species known to him.

“Is that true, are you able to manipulate water and fire?” he asked with elusive interest in his voice. Amira had to think about the best way to explain everything. “Actually I don’t control ice or fire, it is more so that I am able to influence the frequency at which the atoms within my reach are vibrating” “Astonishing,” Yhoaal marvelled, while eyeing her once again. “And since you’re working for the talent project, does that mean that you are here to reinforce the Confederacy’s presence in this sector?” he asked. Amira shook her head, “No. Even though it is needless to say that I would help in the case of an emergency, my duties here are partially to search for talents in this sector and ask them to join the project, the key task though is to be another safeguard to this event and especially it’s guests”.

Y hoaal raised his hairless eyebrows in surprised, but seemed delighted about this information. “ Thus you are here to establish relations between our species,” Eenim concluded and turned to his father. “Don’t you think she would be the perfect guard for the visit on Sitohno?” he asked in a hopeful way. “That depends whether Miss Amira is even interested in visiting a bit more of our beautiful speck of the galaxy,” he stated and looked at Amira. “You would accompany my son and later me to one of Vhareen’s neighbouring systems where we would debate with them, if they would be interested to join the Confederacy along with  us. Of course we would pay for your expenses”. 

The offer sounded quite interesting and if they were intending to convince the government of Sitohno to join the Royal Confederacy Amira’s attendance might be helpful. “I would be honoured to join you,” the girl declared, “But since you are in the progress of joining yourself and the Confederacy doesn’t use money within its borders, all you would have to do is file a request and one of the operators will reassign me”. The lack of money was one of the most interesting and most complex systems within the Federation and applying this model to new members as well  as keeping it viable was a progress that to Amira verged on magic.

Y hoaal had meanwhile activated one of the holographic screens and was currently completing the form the human girl had been talking about.  He marked it as urgent before putting the sigil of his House beneath it and sending it to the administration of the  project. “When should I…” the Ambassador’s question was interrupted by a bell like notification sound. “I guess the answer is now,” Amira responded  and further explained, “It is kind of helpful when there is an AI helping out in the management”.  Yhoaal checked the note and indeed it was the approval for Amira’s reassignment.

“When are we leaving?” Amira asked. “If you can arrange it, you and I are going to leave tomorrow morning and my father will meet us on Sitohno once the preliminary negotiations here are over,” Eenim declared. He took the files along with a prepared invitation and handed them to Amira. The girl took the gleaming orb and pressed it into the upper side of her forearm which uploaded the files directly into her cortical implant. This further impressed the two Vhareen. “You have had nanites injected into your bloodstream, haven’t you?” Eenim noted, observing the beam of light that moved up Amira’s arm until it completely vanished into her flesh. She nodded and showed them how she could create a holographic projection over the palm of her hand. “The nanites help me to regulate and optimise my somatic functions”.

The Ambassador seemed to be even more interested than his son. He tried to access the projection and was astonished when he actually could operate the interface. “There are several scientists on Vhareen who have been working on a technology like this and they were beside themselves with joy when they heard about the progress Terra and Ze’Kyyra had made so far,” he noted. “I am sure they would love to take a look at th ese tiny widgets once we have become a part of the Confederacy”. Once again Amira granted the man a kind smile and stated that she would love to be of help wherever possible.

T his proposition was met with great approval by Yhoaal, who made a casual glance at his wrist only to be astonished by how late it already was. “I think it is best for you two to retire to your quarters, after all you have quite the day tomorrow,” he said and winked at one of his servants to escort them out of the room.

When the sliding doors closed behind Amira and Eenim it was as if every sound died away. The perfect isolation hindered any tone of the reception from escaping into the corridor and with the lack of music the two became awkwardly aware of the other’s breathing. “Well I guess this is good night then,” Eenim broke the silence. “Good night indeed,” Amira returned. She came a little closer to Eenim and left a kind but not too long kiss on the boy’s cheek. “See you tomorrow,” she whispered and  vanished around the next corner.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and cutups are very welcome.


End file.
